Dirt lot holds remains of deadly migrant crossings

Unidentified migrants who died in the Imperial Valley desert or mountains are buried in the back of the Terrace Park Cemetery in a dirt lot with a brick declaring either John Doe or Jane Doe, and a row number.

Unidentified migrants who died in the Imperial Valley desert or mountains are buried in the back of the Terrace Park Cemetery in a dirt lot with a brick declaring either John Doe or Jane Doe, and a row number.

In an unmarked dirt lot at the end of Terrace Park Cemetery in Holtville lie the remains of hundreds of unidentified migrants. Most of these people died alone in the Imperial Valley desert or mountains, likely while attempting to illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. Some drowned in irrigation canals. Others died of thirst or exposure to extreme heat.

Each burial site is marked only with a large brick, each inscribed with the words “John Doe” or “Jane Doe” and a row number.

The expansive lot offers a stark contrast to the grassy, well-kept property at the front of the cemetery, where flowers and other mementos decorate the headstones that mark each grave. This pauper’s cemetery, located about 125 miles east of San Diego, is one of the few known resting places for unidentified migrants who died on U.S. soil.

Migrant deaths are commonplace in the Imperial Valley, where summer temperatures regularly surpass 100 degrees. Many residents of the small town of Holtville have gone most of their lives without knowing about the dirt lot at Terrace Park. That portion of the cemetery remains closed to the public; groundskeepers open the gate there only upon special request.

Unidentified migrants

In recent years, the lot has fallen into even more obscurity. It was 2009 when the last migrants were buried in that county-funded section of the cemetery, according to Terrace Park officials. Now whenever deceased migrants are found in this county, they’re cremated and their ashes are scattered at sea.

Their anonymity in death is an extreme reflection of the often desperate attempts by people to enter the United States. The flow of unauthorized immigrants has been a source of controversy for decades. In fact, illegal immigration remains one of the most highly debated topics in this nation.

While pro-immigrant groups believe the U.S. should welcome foreigners fleeing strife or seeking better economic opportunities, critics counter that unauthorized immigrants should be barred because they flout the nation’s rules and take resources away from legitimate Americans.

In the case of burials and cremations for unidentified migrants, critics of illegal immigration said the taxpayer funds used for those processes means less money available for other important needs.

They also argue that it hurts taxpayers who often have to front cost for these public resources. All of the cremations orchestrated by the Imperial County Public Administrator are taxpayer funded.

Donald Trump, the likely Republican nominee for president, has vowed to build a wall along the entire U.S.-Mexico border — and have Mexico pay for the project. When he announced his candidacy about a year ago, he made illegal immigration a keystone issue of his campaign.

“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bring crime. They’re rapists. … And some, I assume, are good people,” Trump said at the time.

On the other side are people like members of the San Diego-based nonprofit group Border Angels, which for the past 15 years has visited the dirt lot at Terrace Park to memorialize the migrants buried there. These volunteers place small, colorful wooden crosses inscribed with messages such as “No olvidados” (“Not forgotten”) and “Fe” (“Faith”).

“It’s really sad because each one of these people, they did not expect to die when they crossed the border,” Enrique Morones, founder of the group, said during a recent trip to the cemetery. He travels to the site about every six weeks, often with students and other interested people.

One of those individuals is John Hernandez, a lifelong resident of El Centro. Hernandez said he didn’t know about the dirt lot until he became more involved in his community as an adult.

“It really saddened me to think that this is how we’re treating a particular group of people, as opposed to how we’re treating the general public (in the rest of the cemetery),” he said. “... And that these souls, the spirits of people that have perished across the desert, can’t get that respect in their final resting space.”

Pauper cemetery’s history

Established in the 1930s, Terrace Park Cemetery eventually became part of the Central Valley Cemetery District, which also encompasses the Evergreen and Imperial cemeteries.

Imperial County began funding burials at Terrace Park for indigents in 1995 after space for such burials was exhausted at Evergreen, said Chuck Jernigan, superintendent of the cemetery district.

About 240 unidentified individuals are buried in the three-acre dirt lot at Terrace Park, although Jernigan stressed that not all were migrants who died while crossing the border.

“There are people there who were not from a foreign country, but who were never identified,” he said.

In addition, more than 280 identified people are laid to rest in the same location, often because their families didn’t have the financial resources to pay for a funeral and gravesite elsewhere.

The pauper’s cemetery opened shortly after the 1994 establishment of Operation Gatekeeper, a program aimed at deterring illegal immigration at the U.S.-Mexico border in San Diego. Ramped-up enforcement in that area prompted migration patterns to shift eastward into the Imperial Valley and Arizona.

Illegal immigration reached record highs in the following decade, with the number of unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. reaching a historic 12 million around 2011. The current population is estimated at 11 million.

Today more Mexican immigrants are returning to Mexico than those entering the United States, based on analyses by the Mexican National Survey of Demographic Dynamics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the Pew Research Center. Experts attribute the trend to a variety of factors, including a stronger economy and a declining birth rate in Mexico.

There were about 240 deaths in fiscal 2015 along the U.S.-Mexico border, which includes the Border Patrol sectors spanning Southern California, Arizona and Texas, according to U.S. Customs and Border Protection.

In the El Centro sector, there were three recorded deaths in 2013, six in 2014 and four last year, the agency said. By comparison, the same sector reported 90 deaths in 1998 and 56 the following year.

Identities forever lost

When a migrant is found dead in the desert or mountains of Imperial County — by Border Patrol agents or bystanders who alert authorities — the coroner’s office is dispatched to the scene to examine the corpse, as with any other death.

Five of the eight John or Jane Does found so far this year were unauthorized immigrants, according to the coroner’s office.

Many of these victims underestimated the perils of their journey, carrying insufficient amounts of water, wearing the wrong type of clothing or wading across canals with no knowledge of how to swim.

To make matters worse, smugglers often forbid clients from carrying I.D. as a way to cast off blame if a migrant from the group dies or is apprehended.

“With John Does, we will use whatever means we can to identify these individuals,” said Sgt. Eric Frazier, supervising deputy coroner at the Imperial County Coroner’s Office. That includes fingerprint analysis and dental or DNA comparisons. Investigators also look for distinct tattoos, birthmarks or unique details in a decedent’s clothing that family members may recognize.

Such details are entered into a federal database of migrants and screened for potential familial matches.

The coroner’s office typically holds an unidentified body for 30 days after an autopsy is performed, in case it hears from family members. If the remains aren’t claimed during that period, they’re transferred to the Imperial County Public Administrator’s Office, along with any property or clothing belonging to that individual.

The public administrator generally acts as a facilitator for the affairs of people who died and have no known relatives. The administrator works with the U.S. Border Patrol and the Mexican consulate in a bid to identify anonymous migrants.

Cremation, sea dispersal

These days, the administrator’s office cremates unidentified migrants instead of burying them — a switch that saves the county roughly $860 per person, said Rosie Blankenship, assistant public administrator for Imperial County.

Two local mortuaries in El Centro — Frye Chapel and Hems Brothers — are contracted to perform the cremations. Each cremation costs the county about $645, which is drawn from its Indigent Burial Account.

The public administrator keeps the cremains in a secured vault for one year. If they aren’t claimed in that time, they get scattered at sea off of San Diego. The owner of San Diego Burial at Sea, which scatters the remains, declined to be interviewed for this story or to provide information on the process.

Lupe Hernandez, a Holtville resident for 33 years now, was unaware of the pauper’s cemetery in her own community until media reports began circulating in the early 2000s. Many residents shared the same surprise, she said.

“We didn’t know (until then). It was like a secret, I don’t know why,” Hernandez said.

After the news spread, local community groups stopped by the cemetery to pay their respects, she said. But those visits have stopped, and Hernandez said she doesn’t know of any groups that still come there except for Border Angels.

“I hope (those migrants) are never forgotten, that we continue to hold remembrances for these people who died with no family members at their side,” she said.